Faith script tattoo on the upper arm

The snow came over the pass on Tuesday and has not stopped since, so I am writing this by the kitchen range with the ledger open beside me, which is the only place in the Green Hart where the ink does not freeze. Mother has given the back room to the carrier's boy and his dog. Mr Aske, who came up from Keld with a bad leg and a worse temper, has taken the settle by the fire and claims it as his own. Nobody has paid for the upstairs rooms in a fortnight, but we have eleven people under this roof and a barrel of Father's ale nearly gone.

Yesterday I went down the lane with the shovel to see whether the Lindqvist sisters' cart was still stuck at the bend. It was. The mare had her head down and the girls sat in the back under a horse blanket, singing hymns to keep warm. I told them the Green Hart would have them, and they looked at me as though I had offered them the moon. I think they had stopped believing anyone would come. We got them through the drift by dark, and the eldest asked me to write the name of the inn on a scrap of paper so she could show her mother. I wrote it in my best hand. I thought of you.

You always said the letters of a word were like stitches, that if you pulled one loose the whole thing unravelled. You wrote that to me from Carlisle the spring you left, and I kept it pinned above the mantel with the tally sticks. I have been reading it again this week. I do not think you were wrong, only that the thread holds longer than we expect when the hands holding it are kind.

The pass should open by Thursday, Mother says, if the wind turns. Come home when it does. The room at the top of the stairs still has your name on the door, chalked where nobody can rub it off, and I have not let anyone sleep there. Keep faith with the road, and we will keep the fire lit.

Your sister, Ruth